


I'm Dreaming of a SHIELD Christmas

by fiction_before_reality



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiction_before_reality/pseuds/fiction_before_reality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amongst holiday laughter and cheer, Daisy battles her churning emotions at the second Christmas without Trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Dreaming of a SHIELD Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic. Let me know what you guys think!

**_Christmas Eve_ **

Everything was falling into place. Everything, that is, except for Daisy’s uncooperative emotions. She’s spent hours trying to reassure herself that everything would be fine. If there was anyone who deserved a break, it was her team. The hits just wouldn’t stop coming. Rosalind dead, Will dead, Ward God only knows what. Maybe everything could just be fine for a few weeks. A few weeks. That wasn’t asking much, was it? Back at her van, the worst thing to happen was the occasional illicit activity down the alley.

 

Daisy was distracted from her thought trainwreck by Hunter, who was again having difficulties with the simplest of tasks.

 

“Oye, Daisy!” Hunter said from across the room, “Where do we want the wreath again?” “

 

Ug,” Daisy said and pried herself away from her spot to again direct the decorating. “There, on that wall,” she pointed.

 

“Oh…and erm, why there?”

 

“That’s right over Trip’s favorite seat,” Daisy responds in hardly more than a broken whisper. There is silence throughout the room for a second before Hunter sets the wreath down and grabs his half-empty beer off of the coffee table.

 

“May God have mercy on his soul when you get to where he’s at.”

 

“What?” Daisy is extremely confused.

 

“Come on, let’s be real. You’ll see Trip in the afterlife, and you might just kill him again for dying too soon.”

 

Hunter’s words really shouldn’t be funny, and yet somehow they alleviate tension, both in Daisy and in the air. All motion in the room resumes; everyone with their own job, their own role to play, with her supervising.

 

Daisy now has tears in her eyes when she walks towards Lincoln, who is leaning against the wall with a sadness in his eyes for the man that he never met, the one who has affected Daisy so deeply. Daisy buries her face into his solid chest. “It’s okay Skye, it’s alright. Just let it out.”

 

“It’s Daisy,” she mumbles into his chest.

 

“What?”

 

“Whenever I get upset, you call me Skye. It’s Daisy now.”

 

“I guess I spent so much time in Afterlife watching you cry and trying to help you.”

 

“Well, thank you very much for trying to help.”

 

At her last word, Coulson bounds in with May right behind. “Why was the Director of SHIELD not informed of holiday decorating going on right under his nose, in his own base?”

 

Mack actually sounds penitent when he replies, “Sorry, Sir. We just wanted to spruce things up for our first official SHIELD Christmas. Last year we were otherwise occupied and this year we wanted to do something.” Daisy again feels tears rising when she remembers why they couldn’t decorate last year. She had been in quarantine, and they all had been mourning Trip’s death.

 

“Mack, that’s not what I meant. All I meant is, what can I do to help?” Then, Coulson whips out an old and ragged Santa hat from behind his back and places it on his head. “I’m ready to go!” The team laughs and resumes decorating.

 

May stands behind Coulson, giving Daisy and Lincoln a cool look. It was then that Daisy realized that she was still practically wrapped around him, her curled fists resting against his solid chest. Daisy felt a blush begin to stain her cheeks as she pushed away from him. She and Lincoln were still just friends, even after their heat-of-the-moment kiss during hell-on-earth.

 

That was what the team called it, that time when Fitz was on the alien world and Rosalind was murdered, _hell-on-earth_. It had an appropriately creepy inflection to it, mirroring all of the depressing events that happened.

 

Daisy sighed as she picked up the strings of lights and started wrapping them around the tree that Mack and Fitz had retrieved earlier that day. She was trying to untangle one set of lights with limited success until she felt a source of warmth behind her. Lincoln moved his hands around her until he was in a position to help unravel the lights. Once they managed it and finished putting the lights on the tree, Daisy quickly ducked under his arm to go retrieve the boxes of ornaments that they had used two years ago when they first decorated for the holidays on the base.

 

When Daisy opened the second box in search of tinsel for the tree, the first thing that she saw was an envelope addressed to her, but not as she was then. _To Skye_ was written in perfectly formed letters on the envelope. She felt the color drain from her face when she noticed the handwriting. She felt like she’d seen a ghost. Why was there something written by Trip in a box that hadn’t been opened in two years? And why did Trip write something to her?

 

“Daisy, what is it?”

 

“Oh, of course you get my name right now, Lincoln,” Daisy says in a faint, breathy voice. “Um, guys, I’ll be back in a minute.” Ignoring the sounds of concern issuing from everyone, Daisy turns and exits the room.

 

***

Back in the common room, Coulson blocks Lincoln from following after Daisy.

 

“What are you doing? Let me go to her!”

 

“No. Whatever she found, it’s obviously rattled her. Give her a bit before you go all protector on her.”

 

“She could use a protector right now!” Lincoln is clearly losing control. Sparks arc from one part of his anatomy to another.

 

“Have you seen Skye lately? That girl is phenomenal. She’s stronger than you think she is.”

 

“Her name is Daisy.”

 

***

Daisy enters her bunk, a few twists and turns away from the common room, and flops into her comfy computer chair. She reaches for the bottle of Scotch hidden in her desk drawer, but then thinks better of it. She’ll need a clear head for this.

_It’s better to rip off the band-aid, right?_ She questions herself, before slicing open the top of the envelope with one of her knives. She thought that she was prepared for whatever was written inside, but she was wrong.

_“Hi, Skye_

_If you’re reading this, then I’m probably dead. Either that, or I just didn’t get back to the base in time to remove this letter from the holiday stuff, which would be pretty embarrassing. Maybe I’m a fool, maybe I’m going crazy, but I figured I should write this just in case. I’ve been having dreams lately, mostly terrible dreams. I see you, Raina, me, all in some chamber underground. With all that we’ve learned about the city, I fear that it may be the temple. If what I see is true, then I’m sorry. I see you alone at night, crying, and I know that it’s because of me. I just want you to know that after all that you go through, you will be loved. I see his face in my dreams, I know what I see is true, but I don’t know him. I think that you will. Oh, I’ve got to go. I can hear FitzSimmons getting ready. We’re off to the races. So, come on girl, don’t worry, everything will work out in the end. God I hope I’m crazy._

_Love,_

_Trip_

_P.S. - Tell the gang I said hi._

_P.P.S. - Tell blondie once you find him that I’ll come back and kill him if he hurts you.”_

 

***

Lincoln finally broke free of Coulson and sprinted to Daisy’s room. One left, three rights, one left, second door on the right. Even though he rarely spent time with her in her room, he liked to have the way memorized. It gave him a peace of mind to know that he could reach Daisy in under a minute if need be.

 

Lincoln didn’t bother with knocking. Daisy needed him; he could hear her sobs through her door. He calmed down a bit as he slowly opened her door. Through the growing crack, he could see Daisy sprawled on her bed, face in the pillows with an envelope and paper next to her.

 

“Daisy, what’s wrong?” She lifted her head and shook it before letting out another heart-wrenching sob. She buried her face in her pillow again before she picked up the letter and thrust it towards him.

 

“Read it.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow, “Just read it.”

 

So he does. Once he’s done, he looks at her with confusion in his eyes. “What is this?”

 

“I guess Trip was more special than any of us thought.” Daisy is now sitting up on the bed, and her face is resetting itself, wiping away any traces that she was, even for a moment, not the outwardly strong and tough woman that she portrays herself as.

 

Lincoln hesitates before posing his next question, does he really want to know? “Who do you think he means when he says that bit about blondie?”

 

“Go look in a mirror.” She leans forward and gives him a soft kiss on the mouth before he reciprocates.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you guys think. Leave me prompts in the comments and I'll get to them ASAP. Let me know if you guys think I should do more holiday stuff like this.


End file.
